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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24162790">Leaving you again, endlessly</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Etherea/pseuds/Etherea'>Etherea</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>We were steel to stand it [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Blood, Character Death, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Dead Horse: Do Not Eat, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia Has Feelings, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia Whump, Hurt No Comfort, This Is Your Doing Janet, Whump, no beta we die like renfri</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-05-13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-05-13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-02 21:00:42</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Major Character Death</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,196</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24162790</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Etherea/pseuds/Etherea</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Roach’s scream cuts through the adrenaline of the fight, and as his sword cleaves the final bloedzuiger in two, Geralt spins away from its last spray of acid to seek his companion. Cursing the clinging miasma of the swamp, he surges through knee-deep sludge towards the road. He can smell the blood before he gets there.</p><p>Finally he can see her, lying on her side, flanks heaving. A thousand curses from every kingdom on the Continent sound like chimes in his brain, but it is a reliable and heartfelt “Fuck,” that leaves his lips.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>We were steel to stand it [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1743775</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>28</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Leaving you again, endlessly</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>For Janet, originator of this accursed concept. I hope you're happy!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Roach’s scream cuts through the adrenaline of the fight, and as his sword cleaves the final bloedzuiger in two, Geralt spins away from its last spray of acid to seek his companion. Cursing the clinging miasma of the swamp, he surges through knee-deep sludge towards the road. He can smell the blood before he gets there.</p><p>Finally he can see her, lying on her side, flanks heaving. A thousand curses from every kingdom on the Continent sound like chimes in his brain, but it is a reliable and heartfelt “Fuck,” that leaves his lips. She must have reared, <em> she always rears at the monsters </em> , and one hind leg slipped into a rut in the road. Powerful and dangerous though they are, a horse’s legs have their delicate points of failure as surely as do diamonds. The broken bone of her off hind shin juts out, stark against the chestnut coat, the mud-soaked fetlocks, the crimson of her blood. Not even felled by a monster, after all these battles. Just a shitty road. An error of footwork. <em> Happens to the best of us, Roach</em>. Her eyes find his, that same stark white showing all around her iris. She makes a pitiful noise, and the broken part of her leg flaps grotesquely as she struggles to right herself.</p><p>Horse bones heal as well as human ones, but even with all his alchemical training he cannot devise a way to immobilise her for months. Maybe if this had happened at home? But then, there were no swamps in those mountains, and his fellow Witchers would not permit such excess in pursuit of saving a mere horse. A Witcher’s mount needs specific qualities, yes, but suitable candidates were hardly <em> rare </em>. It is foolish to even consider saving her, and yet he spends an eyeblink considering and discarding a thousand futile ways.</p><p>He kneels by his steed, laying down his sword and taking her head onto his thighs. Little noises of pain and terror escape her flaring nostrils. Geralt lays his hand on her broad, soft cheek, stroking gently until she calms and her eyes flutter closed, breath still shuddering but the stink of fear faded slightly. He draws a slender dagger from its sheath and traces a cross between her ears and eyes. Keeping up his rumbly mutterings of <em> good girl </em> and <em> steady now, quiet, </em> he places the tip at the centre of the imagined cross <em> . </em> One strong thrust sends the dagger into her skull to kill her brain. He withdraws it, reaching behind her cheekbone and ear to sever the veins and arteries. He holds her as the hot torrents of lifeblood rush out, twitches and gasping breaths easing as she goes. It is not pain or distress that move her now, but the last electric traces of life, sparking out on their closed and fading circuits.<br/>
<br/>
“Rest now, Roach,” he murmurs.<br/>
<br/>
Kneeling now in the dark blood, the weight of Roach’s head in his lap, the fire of his potions leeching from his bloodstream, he feels cold. Not even in the depths of winter, whipped by the winds at Kaer Morhen, do these parts of him feel chilled. She was so young, barely a grown mare when she came to him a scant handful of years ago. Most incarnations of Roach, when their life with him was done, he had managed to sell or trade to farmers. The work of hauling plows and carts is feather light after serving as a Witcher’s horse. It was rare to lose one in her prime, in the midst of battle, to a stupid fucking slippery rut in the swampy arse of a back woods kingdom. </p><p>He had not expected to farewell this Roach with such finality, nor to be her executioner. Try as he might he cannot shed the thought that he ought to have been hooded to deal out so unjust a sentence. The one being he allowed himself to feel...<em> something </em>...for, should not have had to die at his hand. But then, he would not trust another to give her so swift and easy an end. Nor would she have calmed for any eyes but his. </p><p>Geralt sets about stripping the tack and baggage from her body. </p><p><em> Her body. </em> </p><p>No other animal got to be a body. They went from beast to food. He did not mourn them. He should not mourn this Roach. She had served her purpose, as had every fish and rabbit and cow that had ever fed him. Emotions are not for Witchers. They are weakness and vulnerability. Witchers do not grieve.<br/>
<br/>
Still, he sits back in the mud. Stripped now of her burdens, Roach looks small. How had those slender legs ever carried the weight of his bulk, and all his shit? His breeches stink of her blood. Already, she grows cold.<br/>
<br/>
The sensible thing to do would be to leave her body where it lies. She is too big to be buried, and too wet to burn, even if she hadn’t died in this damp fucking swamp. Geralt does not feel sensible. His shoulder aches where she used to bump her head into him, affectionate, reproachful, or approving. The oat-heavy mealcakes in his supplies, in theory a food of last resort if forage grew thin, would not now be snuck into her slobbery muzzle as thanks for a long day’s work. He still hides those little moments of affection, feeling the spectre of Vesemir’s disapproval at this vestige of softness the Trials could not quite wring from him.<br/>
<br/>
What Geralt <em> actually </em> does is tie a rope around her hind feet and wade back into the swamp - what’s a little more mud, at this point? - to pull the line around a tree. Pouring the last of his energy into the task, he hauls Roach’s body into the swamp. She doesn’t seem so small any more, her dead weight pitted against his stubborn but tiring strength. Rope retrieved, he extricates himself once more and watches from the road as the swamp’s ooze inexorably claims her body. Better to be food for the creatures that dwell there, than skinned and jerked by any traveller who came upon her before she’d had a chance to rot in peace. The dignity of returning to the earth; this, at least, he could give to her.<br/>
<br/>
Movement a little ways down the road caught his eye, but whatever it was seemed to vanish as he focused on it. He turned slightly away again, and surely it was the exhaustion of the past several hours that had him seeing the faint outline of Death, feminine and familiar, leading a chestnut ghost into the trees beyond.<br/>
<br/>
Geralt kneels to meditate. He needs strength. Walking would be unpleasant with the added burden of the tack and saddlebags, and he would need the coin they were worth to purchase a new mount before continuing on the path. The first sound, strong beast with four legs and half a brain, he tells himself. A gelding would do. Colour is of no consequence. </p><p> </p><p>A week later, he leaves the unremarkable town of Lodz mounted on a solid but spritely chestnut mare.<br/>
<br/>
He names her Roach.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Title from Mercury Rev's 'Endlessly.' https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8vvQMLACXkw </p><p>*Based on the death of my childhood pony. You were a good Boy and I still miss you. </p><p>*Except for the bloedzuiger, we didn't have those in my swamp. Only drop bears.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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